The subject matter disclosed herein relates to the protection of heat exchangers, such as air conditioner (AC) heat exchangers, from environmental debris.
A heat exchanger is a device that is used to transfer heat from one medium to another. For many heat exchanging systems, air serves as the target medium to which heat is transferred from some other hot medium (e.g., hot refrigerant, hot water, steam, etc.). In such systems, the hot medium is typically passed through one or more metallic coils that maximize the contact surface area for the heat exchanging process. Meanwhile, streams of relatively cool air are drawn over the coils, warming the air while cooling the coils and the medium contained therein. Ideally, the surface of the coils should remain free from environmental debris (e.g., dust, dirt, pollen, etc.), since this debris can reduce the contact surface area between the air stream and the coils. For example, the debris essentially creates an undesirable insulation layer (e.g., coil fouling) that can interfere with the heat transfer process. As the efficiency of the heat transfer process begins to decline due to this coil fouling, the efficiency of the entire system is reduced, and as a consequence, the power consumption of the system increases in an attempt to maintain a similar rate of heat transfer. Over time, system components, such as the compressor, may eventually be stressed to the point of failure in attempting to compensate for the lower efficiency. The problem of coil fouling is further exacerbated in refrigerant-based air conditioning systems, wherein the condenser coils are designed to be located in, and exchange air with, the relatively dirty outdoor environment.